The recent matchup between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers was certainly one big roller-coaster! Given that Jayson Tatum and Co had won 6 of the previous 7 games against the franchise, it would be smooth sailing this time too. However, even without their key players, the 76ers took an early lead, going 29-21 in the first quarter and then taking the score to 61-44 by halftime. Fortunately, the Celtics were able to recover, and end the game at 118-110 in their favor. When recalling what went wrong back then, the two lead scorers had their own explanations to give out.

During the Q&A session in the locker room, it didn’t take long for reporters to ask Jayson Tatum about the slow start. The star player did not play around with words. He outright admitted that “our competitive Spirit wasn’t where it needed to be”. Joe Mazzulla saw this and decided to use a different motivation method for the players. As Tatum highlighted, the coach went up to them and said ‘yo if you tired then just tell me. I sit you guys down, let you stay, ready to go play’. The 26-year-old used Mazzulla’s warning to realize that they had to make a choice: either to give up or to energize themselves.

“It was a long third quarter like it didn’t go our way right away, and we just had to keep fighting. But, it brought the best out of us” said Tatum. “It brought, you know, that’s how we supposed to play. You know, it took a little bit from everybody. Our competitive joy was there on both ends and, um, it was just fun to be a part of”.

Even Jaylen Brown admitted that something sinister seemed to be afoul during the first half. When the time came for him to explain, he stated: “It was just mindset. First half was like, you know, it was too many things that was just not important, that was affecting us. Affecting me like you know, like expecting calls or whatever”. Instead of worrying too much about unrelated factors, Brown went on to instead just focus on playing basketball and let the rest figure itself out. As the player stated “I feel like our team kind of took that mindset in the second half and just stayed with it and, you know, played through it. Even through some of the mistakes and we ended up being able to put a nice stretch together and come back”.

The Boston Celtics are playing well this season. Through a 35-15 win record, the defending champions currently rank as the 2 seed on the Eastern Conference table. They hold the 3 best record of the season and are on track to make the playoffs again. Despite this, they have been slipping since the onset of January, and maybe since before.

According to a CBS Sports report published back on January 24, “the effort (by the Celtics) has been severely lacking over the last seven weeks, and Boston’s once-feared offense has gone in the tank”. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were blamed for not playing to their full potential. Even if Brown had an efficiency rating of +17 in the recent Celtics-76ers game, he also had a -12, -18, and -23 in three games last month. As for Jayson Tatum, his efficiency rating was only at +2 in the recent game.

It could have been worse, had Joe Mazzulla not ‘mocked’ his players through the warning.

“I mean, he just kind of challenged us at halftime like, you know, the way we was playing in the first half was not, you know, representative of who we are as a team, as an organization” Tatum added. “And uh, you know, we took it as men and responded”.

The lack in efficiency has been a problem for a while, and the Boston Celtics know it. After all, it was there for all to see in the aftermath of a performance about which Kristaps Porzingis could not stay silent.

Kristaps Porzingis called out Celtics’ low level after breaking 13-Year-Old Record: “We didn’t play up”

Back in early January, the Boston Celtics went up against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Given that Jayson Tatum and Co faced one of the two top-seeding NBA teams of the season, they were bound to be competitive. Unfortunately, the Celtics could not even put up an efficient fight. The squad scored fewer points in the 2 half than any other Celtics team had done since 2012. When Kristaps Porzingis learned that his squad only made 27 points in the second half, he let out a sort of ‘Woah’ type whistle. Touching base on the reason behind the same, Porzingis said “It’s like a mix of everything, but I would say we didn’t play up to our level at all offensively in the second half, and think some of the things need to be looked at, and just give each other more space, more freedom”.

Both Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown agreed with their teammate’s viewpoint. Tatum emphasized the need to match the physicality of the rival team for the game’s duration, while Brown admitted to a “lack of poise”.

Despite this acceptance, the Boston Celtics nearly faced an embarrassing defeat. Whether the team carries forward the lessons from the recent game is something that remains to be seen.